The UN is not leaving Cyprus, the UN Secretary General`s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.
Replying to a question during his briefing about press reports, according to which the UNSG`s Special Representative in Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar referred to a possible withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping force from Cyprus, Dujarric said: “I will have to shut it down. The UN is not leaving Cyprus.”
The UN peacekeeping mission “has a mandate, given by the UNSC,” he said, and added: “That mandate remains, the UN will remain, supporting Cyprus, the people of Cyprus, and I think from what I understand, the Special Representative was misquoted.”
Replying to another question about the function of the mission at this time in terms of peace, he said that “the mission is there to continue to monitor the line between the two communities.”
It is not, he added, “a matter of no peace to keep. No one would ever say that Cyprus is in a state of war or conflict. There is peace,” he noted.
“What we are looking for and what we will continue to be available to Cypriot parties is to help reach that political agreement,” he said. In the meantime, he added, “the UN mission there is staying on the ground.”
Replying to a question as to the differences between Cyprus and the situation for example in Haiti or Liberia or other places, the UN official said that in the eyes of the UN and in the eyes of the Security Council clearly remains the need for a peacekeeping mission, “albeit a small one relative to the peacekeeping missions that we have in the four corners of the earth, but the need remains.”
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. The latest round of the UN-backed Cyprus talks in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, ended inconclusively. The peace talks under the auspices of the UN aim at reuniting the island under a federal roof.